An ordinary water bed of the type and/or class here concerned with comprises an upwardly opening rectangular frame structure including a flat horizontal mattress supporting platform and flat, vertical upwardly projecting side and end boards, with straight horizontal top edges about the perimeter of the platform, and a flotation mattress arranged within the frame structure in supported engagement on the platform and in retained engagement with the side and end boards about its perimeter. The frame structure is a fabricated structure of a rigid or semirigid material such as wood or polyurethane foam and the mattress is a simple bladder-like unit constructed of flexible material such as polyvinylchloride sheeting and is filled with a suitable liquid or gaseous fluid medium, such as water or air. Water filled flotation mattresses are constructed or formed to substantially correspond with the interior space defined by the frame structures and have or define normally flat horizontal body supporting top walls, flat horizontal bottom walls and normally flat vertical side and end walls. The bottom, side and end walls normally establish flat supported engagement with the platforms and the side and end boards of the bed frame structures with which they are related. The body supporting top walls normally occur on a horizontal plane substantially coincidental with the planes of the frame structures on which the upper edges of the side and end boards occur.
In practice, the vertical extent or depth of flotation mattresses, that is, the normal vertical pace or distance between the top and bottom walls and the resulting depth of the water within the mattresses is, for example, about 8" and is such that when the bodies of persons of maximum anticipated weight are engaged on and supported by the top walls of the mattresses and the top walls are urged or depressed downwardly thereby, displacing volumes of water or air within the mattress whereby the bodies are buoyantly supported, the top walls will not, under normal circumstances, continually engage and stop against or "bottom out" on the bottom walls and/or platforms of the beds.
Flotation mattresses of the character referred to above are fabricated of panels and/or pieces of plastic sheeting cut, folded and welded together in accordance with predetermined patterns and procedures. The patterns, procedures and fabricating techniques employed by different manufacturers of flotation mattresses vary widely, but in most instances, the resulting mattresses are essentially alike as regards their basic configuration and definable top, bottom and side walls, noted in the preceding.
A major objection or shortcoming found in water beds resides in the tendency of the water within the mattresses to surge and create continuing, diminishing wave actions when bodies are engaged on the mattresses and/or when bodies on the mattresses move or shift position. The noted surging and wave action is often times quite disturbing to persons on the mattresss and is such that some persons lying on such mattresses suffer motion sickness when surging and wave action is generated by the movement of their bodies or the bodies of others on the mattresses.
While the above noted surging and wave action generated in flotation mattresses in soothing and restful to some people, others cannot tolerate it. Accordingly, the attributes or water beds are the subject of some controversy which has had material adverse effects on the sale and use of such beds.
It has been determined that if the surging and/or wave action in water beds was eliminated or reduce to an extent that it was not longer a problem to be considered, many persons who cannot or will not tolerate the surging and wave action experienced in the use of present day water beds would find no objection to such beds and would purchase and adopt the use of such beds to gain the principal advantages afforded thereby, that is, the uniform, conforming and fluid body support such beds provide.
The prior art has long sought to eliminate or reduce surging and wave action in flotation mattresses by the placement of baffles within the mattresses to slow or dampen the movement of water within the mattresses. Such efforts have met with limited or questionable success and have often been so costly to put into practice that they are economically impractical.
Other attempts or means by the prior art to eliminate or reduce the surge and wave action in water beds has been directed to the establishment of mattress structures which are combinations of and constitute a compromise between flotation mattresses and conventional resilient foam plastic mattresses. In such structures, resilient foam plastic mattress pads of limited thickness are arranged within the bottom portions of common flotation mattresses or are arranged beneath special flotation mattresses of less than normal depth whereby the volume and depth of water in the resulting beds is reduced to an extent that surging and wave action is notably reduced.
Some combination mattress structures of the character referred to above have effectively reduced surging and wave action to acceptable levels but in doing so, they reduce the volume and depth of water so that full buoyant support of the bodies of persons engaged on the mattresses is not assured and is oftentimes unattainable. Such combination mattress structures are generally considered a compromise between true flotation mattresses and foam plastic mattresses and are considered to be of questionable value and effectiveness.